"CHEETS!!!!"

Costume try-on....It fits! Emri loves her "Wee-chat" (witch hat)!

I think I like sewing/creating again...

I'm not sure who had a better time trick-or-treating...Mom and Dad, or this cute little witch?! Emri was waaaaaay more into it than I thought she'd be. Snacks are a common occurence at our house, but "cheets" (treats) are harder to come by! Once Emri made that first stop and realized people were just waiting to fill her bucket with treats, she was hard to stop!!

She politely said 'thank you' to each candy hander-outer and then turned around with THIS look on her face and exclaimed "CHEET!!!" EVERY. TIME. It was just one of those really fun moments as a parent to see your child soooo happy!

Some of the neighborhood friends we went with...Boston, Tucker, Isaac, Emri, Sleepy Alysa, Tate, Sam

My good friend Kelsie is in town from UT so it was fun to have her along with us too. (Kels, Brit, E, Jami)

Other than being SO DANG COLD outside it was a fun "beggars night." We will definitely be hittin up the ward trunk-or-treat Saturday where we can enjoy ourselves (INSIDE) a little more!

How to Decorate a Pumpkin

Thanks to my great friend Heather's idea, this year we successfully decorated our pumpkins without the MESS of painting or carving!

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Allow your toddler to weild a screwdriver and poke holes into the side of the seasonal produce.

• Let her place different colors of pipe cleaner into said holes.

• Cut out shapes of sticky felt/foam to make cute (and even scary) faces, then hold up that "bebe brudda" pumpkin proudly for all to see!

• Give your pumpkin lots of loves and thank him for gladly sacrificing his flesh for your enjoyment.

• Pose and cheese for a cute picture in front of the finished products!

Emri wanted "stawz" on her pumpkin and I added a mouth like hers... midline off-centered and all! Brett went for the crazy punk look...complete with a mohawk, eyebrow, nose and tongue piercings (and of course a sweet goatee)! Not sure who inspired mine? Maybe Mimi from The Drew Carey Show!?

Thanks for the great idea Heather!

AND, 0n another exciting note....

This cutie is now completely BINKY FREE as of 1 week ago!

Emri's Buckeye Football Experience

Crazy as it sounds, even little newborns are required to have a ticket to "watch" a Buckeye football game. We had really been wanting to take Emri in to a game to make some final :( football season memories. Brett bought a ticket off a classmate and we borrowed a friend's student ID for E(they don't even look at the ID, it's just required with a "student" ticket).

After parking, we hopped on the shuttle bus to get to the stadium...I think she was a little confused at why we were out and about by 9am! However, she LOVED wearing the "seetos" (stickers) on her face and the "buckee nekeece" (buckeye necklace)! She got LOTS of attention from everyone around, many commenting on how cute she looked, then asking if she was going to remember this? No, probably not...but mom and dad will! :)

We really squeezed in a lot for her one little experience....first, part of the skull session, which is basically a pre-game pep rally.

Then we stopped by one of the many tailgating parking lots (this one for RV's only) to say hi to a good family friend, and eat some lunch. Let me just tell you how crazy fans are here....most of these people have probaby been hangin out in this parking lot since 5am and won't leave till hours after the game has ended! There are pimped out Buckeye RV's and buses galore! All have at least one tv set up outside, along with bbq, and games! AWESOME!

My 2 favorite people heading into the Shoe (I promise Brett did open his eyes at some point)!

Here she is....taking it all in along with 102,000+ other fans! She would just look around at everyone cheering and yelling. Thank goodness we aren't in the true student section anymore or she'd have learned some new words :)

She lasted longer than we expected....half way into the 2nd quarter! It was a blowout game by that point anyway with the Bucks leading 21-0 so we didn't mind heading out early.

This little peanut can now say she's been to "The Shoe!" Can YOU?!?!

Circleville Pumpkin Show

October weekends have never been so busy! Well, now we can say we've been to the "Greatest Free Show on Earth!" I'm not sure it was the greatest, but we checked it off our list of things to see in Ohio.

They have pumpkin EVERYTHING! Brett trying some pumpkin chili.

It's actually quite amazing that pumpkins can really get this big...I think the one behind us was only like 14th place! The winning pumpkin was 1,622 lbs!!!

Basically this place shows off their big pumpkins, makes pumpkin food, has a "Miss Pumpkin" pageant, parade....and of course all the carnies show up and there's plenty of deep-fried fair food to go round. My favorite sampling of the night was fresh mini-pumpkin donuts. Here's the fellas, Matt, Dallin, Brian, Brett (love that their mid-bite), and Brian.

Little Miss Averi and Emri admiring all the pumpkins

The gals: Lacy, Amanda, Jami, Kate, Rachel

20 Months on the 20th!

Isn't this some kind of a "golden birthday" when your age corresponds with the day of the month you were born?! Ok...maybe in years, not months. :)

We attended a Midweek Halloween activity at the church where the kids got to dress up. Emri's costume isn't quite finished, so she went as a Buckeye cheerleader!

making her foam-sticker face pumpkin :)

E with Boston...one of her favorite friends! Future quarterback/cheerleader couple?!?!?!?

I don't feel like Emri has hit any major milestones since last month, other than just saying/repeating more funny phrases than I realize she knows! She's always making us laugh!

• "keh-fo mommy"...she's telling me to be careful as she climbs on furniture???
• "mommy, beshoo" ....this morning when I sneezed!
• "Kaaaaaaahhhmmmm baaaaaack" ....she tells (demands) brett and I to 'come back' whenever we leave the room, or it's "come on" if she needs us to do what she's doing!
• Her favorite show as of late is "Li-nun" (lion.... meaning Madagascar 2), along with li-nun's friends "jee-yaff, heepo, and zebah" (giraffe, hippo, and zebra). Sorry Curious George, I guess she's into more comedy these days. BTW, Any adult who hasn't seen this movie should. It's pretty dang funny!
• The last molar of the 4 is seconds away from cutting. That will make 12 teeth.

Fall Farm Fun...and Family Fotos

There are so many great things to do here in Ohio in the Fall...I guess since it's our last year I'm trying to cram them all in just one more time....or some for the first time, like THIS place we just visited.

At first this was planned as a family outing, but the weather was gorgeous for mid-October and some boys just couldn't resist a day of golfing....good thing all the mom's and kids still were up for it!

There were several barns with different activities!

Cute baby goats to pet!

Emri's 2 favorite attractions were this banana bus pulled by a tractor (each barrel had it's own steering wheel and she thought it was so cool to go "dri-feen" driving).

...and the corn boxes! In my mind, best invention EVER! Corn is way cooler (and cleaner) than sand! We spent the most time here...getting buried...

...burying others...

...resting....

...loading up dump trucks...

...and scooping with heavy duty machinery!

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It's that time of year for family pics...

While on our visit to Cincy, we had Kara snap possibly her fastest photo shoot to date (reasons being #1: my husband isn't very well behaved during pictures, and #2: it was so dang cold outside)!!

I think this one is my fave
Emri had attitude
trying to get some smiles out...
there's the dimple!
I'm not sure if this is hilarious, or frightenening?!?! What is her hair doing?! haha!
ok, she sweetened up a bit :)
playing peek-a-boo w/ daddy

Thanks Kara! You're wonderful!!

Crafting and Growing

Over General Conference weekend I made these cute fall pumpkins! Tutorial found HERE. Kara said I was slow, but I'm pretty impressed I actually made something start to finish all at once!

However, this Halloween wreath took a couple weeks...only because once I started using the burlap I hated it! It sheds and totally made me itch!! I finally finished it....but it doesn't really stand out on my dark blue front door, so it might just stay on the wall. Tutorial found HERE.

The wooden letters were from JoAnn's....then I painted and mod podged them. CUTE!

That's all with the crafting so far, but Fall is a good time to get back into it!

And for the growing ...this little squirt just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Her hair is out of control. I don't want to cut bangs cuz her baby bangs are growing, so we have to figure out ways to keep the mane tamed and out of her eyes!

Piggies are soooo cute....and they make her look so old! Without a ton of hairspray though, they only last about 20 minutes.

I'm GROWING AS WELL! Just as a comparison (to prove I'm bigger this time around), here's 20 weeks pregnant with Emri. THEN: October 2008....

And NOW...21 weeks pregnant with the little guy! Definitely a more "full" belly.

Emri loves to be involved in whatever is going on :) Here she's giving me a "tap-tap!"

Not sure what's going on in this one? "Peench"

Always making us laugh :)

Needing some camera time of her own... she's finally getting a lateral on the bottom, although it looks like a central because of her cute crooked smile.

The face we get when the camera has to be put away. It's hard to say no to those big blue eyes!

As far as the pregnancy goes I've noticed some similarities and differences to the first, but haven't been good about writing much this time.... on the blog or in my neglected journal.

SIMILARITIES:

• haven't been too sick other than a little "blah" feeling the first trimester
• aversion to chicken during first trimester....dry heaving when trying to prepare raw chicken and no appetite for it once cooked!
• could eat cold cereal, graham crackers dipped in milk (now you know where E gets it from) or toast with an instant breakfast for most meals

DIFFERENCES:

• I feel I'm getting bigger faster...and hate when the dr office points it out to me. Thanks. I'm aware!
• The time seems to be going by faster than my first pregnancy
• I was wrong about the sex of the baby
• I haven't woken up in the middle of the night crying of charlie horse cramps in my calves, not once! I'm keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way!
• I enjoy (I don't think I'd go as far as to say "crave") a caffeinated drink a couple times a week. So not me!
• More tired this time around, especially the first few months.
• My back isn't nearly as sore! It's probably due to the fact I'm not awkwardly leaned over patients at work 5 days a week...trying to figure out how to clean teeth, without invading strangers personal space!
• Struggling to think of names.... we actually haven't even talked about it since we found out it's a boy!

Yay for being half way done....and for not waking up several times a night to pee for a while! I can at least make it till 6:30 am most days! :)

Here's a few pics from our ultrasound last week!

facial profile...just chillin on his back

cute little feet
100% BOY!